


Waiting

by aceofsuns



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Because its Oliver, Boyfriends on a walk through the eyepocolypse, Canon Asexual Character, Canonical Character Death, Death, Existential Angst, M/M, Set around MAG 168, and discussions of it, no beta we die like victims of the End, not that relevent I'm just so happy that tag exists, sad but hopeful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:21:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25595692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofsuns/pseuds/aceofsuns
Summary: They will die anyway. They hold hands and walk through this waking nightmare untouched by the reaches of the monsters around them and yet they will still die.Oliver Banks knows this.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Oliver Banks/Graham Folger
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	Waiting

They will die anyway. They hold hands and walk through this waking nightmare untouched by the reaches of the monsters around them and yet they will still die.  
Oliver Banks knows this.

He knows this the way he knows that he will die, the way he knows that Graham Folger is dead, the way that he knows that one day the world will die. It is just a fact of life. A bit of irony, there.  
He watches them walk into his humble part of this nightmare, counting their footfalls along the tendrils and paths, and he waits. The Archivist and his assistant- they could kill him, if they wanted to. Another death in so many, another soul to the End. They could kill him and he would go willingly out of this nightmare realm to meet with his patron at last.  
He thinks back on his short life, before the End fully claimed him. The flings in secondary school, his relationship with Graham, the stress and the breakdown and then the dreams. He wonders if he ever clung on so tightly to the life of another person, if he ever found the comfort from the stark reality of death in another's arms. No, he thinks.  
Death is a lonely thing. The Lukas’ knew that and honoured it in their funerals, for you can never face death together. At the End, you are alone.

Oliver Banks waits in the corpse roots and watches the Archive and his assistant walk closer. They always draw closer no matter which direction they walk. Still they laugh and worry and hold hands, tease each other and argue. They face the cold inevitability of the End and reach for each other regardless. Each touch is meaningless, each word insignificant, and each smile can be rounded down to nothing. In the grand scale of the Universe, two people walking through the apocalypse in love does not matter. They will die anyway.

Oliver Banks used to have a boyfriend. His name was Graham. Their relationship wasn't always perfect but Oliver had loved him. He was killed and replaced by something that was Not Graham.

The Archivist and his assistant are in the corpse roots now. Maybe the Archivist can see the souls as they struggle down their road, maybe he can’t. He could if he tried. He definitely Knows them. The Watcher knows the fear that they are feeling so its Archive knows it too.  
Oliver Banks feels a strange sort of pity for the souls in his care. They struggle with a force they will never win against, a statistical inevitability. No matter what they do or how long they fight against the path that urges them onwards, the End is waiting for them all. It is an inevitability that every person in his domain knows and as terrifying as so many find it, the knowledge of a final truth can be a relief too. Because no matter what happens, all of this will End.

The assistant is jealous of him- the very concept is amusing. It’s in his voice, in the hand gripping slightly too tightly, in the slight crease of his forehead. He has nothing to be afraid of- well. That’s not true, there is so much to fear in this new world. But if he stopped looking around and instead looked across to the Archivist, to the hand that clutched his just as tightly in return, to the glances worried and seeking, to the care and attention that radiates off him so clearly for all to see, well-  
Oliver Banks may have brought the Archivist back to life, but Martin Blackwood is the only reason he’s still living.

He gives the Archivist a gift, a statement. Tells him the truths that he lives by, gives him the knowledge that he must already know but in a way he can think about. The Archivist can no longer ask, so Oliver gives. If he adds a little humour, a little mocking, well, there’s so little to find funny anymore.  
The humour in his report is the kind of thing Graham would have laughed over, the kind of humour that he lent on so heavily after he and the thing calling itself Graham broke up.

Oliver Banks gives the Archivist and his assistant safety in their passage through his realm and waits. Their footsteps echo on the roots, the rhythm matching the heartbeat that comes from every desperate screaming soul, and he sits hidden in the centre while they argue and sulk and talk. He does not care about the decision they come to, about whether he lives or dies; he will die anyway, on this timeless beholden day.  
He waits while they cling to each other, standing still, full of apologies and comfort and reassurance and he thinks about the tendrils that had wrapped around his and Graham’s old flat. Thinks about finding him there in the dreams, already half faded and cradled gently on the ground. Thinks about the pain, and the fear, and the cold acceptance.

The Archivist and his assistant walk steadily out of the corpse roots. The Archivist Knows the path and where it will take them, and leads the man he loves onwards towards their far off destination. No matter which way they walk they are moving closer to their deaths. It doesn’t matter. They are together, and somehow alive. Jon’s hand squeezes Martin’s lightly, and Martin can’t hold back the smile that the small gesture brings.

Oliver Banks waits in the corpse roots and thinks about death. He knows it well- its creeping tendrils have held him the same way they did his father, the same way they did his boyfriend. He has floated in his patrons apathy and truth for many years now, losing his grip on life as the End wrapped itself around him instead. But still, as he watches the Archivist and his assistant walk out across the hell of their own creation and hears their footsteps drawing ever closer, he smiles sadly. And the part of him that had tried so desperately to save his father, that had loved a man called Graham Folger, that saw the fear and terror in the death of a stranger and came to warn her, well-  
They will die anyway, but he wishes them a good End.

**Author's Note:**

> MAG 168 gave me some thoughts and eventually they formed into this


End file.
